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poppastring.com
Mark Downie
@poppastring.com
1.1K followers 560 following 1K posts
🧑🏾‍💻OSS Contributor (dasBlog)
🏢PM @ Microsoft (Visual Studio, Core AI)
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poppastring.com
Mark Downie @poppastring.com · Oct 23
A starter pack If you're looking to follow folks from Microsoft's Core AI Developer Division.

go.bsky.app/JuyrK9N
Reposted by Mark Downie
warren.senate.gov
Amazon, Apple, Comcast, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, Union Pacific Railroad.

They all shoveled money to Trump's ballroom — and could win big from friendly treatment from the admin on active antitrust deals and lawsuits.

Is this bribery in plain sight? I'm pressing for answers.
December 5, 2025 at 5:38 PM
poppastring.com
Fascinating that they elected double team Reeves with the guy guarding LeBron.
nba.com NBA @nba.com · 1d
RUI HACHIMURA FROM THE CORNER FOR THE WIN OFF THE LEBRON JAMES DIME!
December 5, 2025 at 5:34 PM
poppastring.com
Highways and roads lost ~$200B last year! Will this service ever become profitable? o_0

[I should note for the general BlueSky audience that this is sarcasm]
December 5, 2025 at 4:29 PM
poppastring.com
Just published 🚀: Does the math work?


https://www.poppastring.com/blog/does-the-math-work
#artificialintelligence
December 4, 2025 at 5:13 AM
poppastring.com
A post from the archive 📫:
Making production diagnostics easier with Source Link


https://www.poppastring.com/blog/making-production-diagnostics-easier-with-source-link
#diagnostics #debugging #visualstudio
December 3, 2025 at 7:35 PM
Reposted by Mark Downie
lioninthetrees.bsky.social
Here's a look at some of the pieces I made for the 21st annual Post It Show THIS SATURDAY at Giant Robot! ✨💖

1000s of originals from 100s of artists will be available for $30 a pop!

Peep their blog for more info:
www.giantrobot.com/blogs/giant-...

#art
A set of 6 sticky notes arranged on a piece of card-stock. The illustrations painted on each sticky note are a variety of animals ranging from wolves, bears, a bison done in an illustrative style similar to my ceramic pieces. They look as though they’re running across a landscape with a red sun, or a crescent moon, high above them. There is also a piece featuring a crow with a big googly eye (literally, it's an actual googly eye).
December 3, 2025 at 4:03 PM
Reposted by Mark Downie
isadora.codes
I can't believe I made into 2026 Forbes 30 under 30!!!!! 🥹🥹

it's surreal to work doing what I love every day, I'm deeply thankful for everything 😭💛
screenshot of the website for 2026 forbes 30u30 under my name!
December 2, 2025 at 6:48 PM
Reposted by Mark Downie
captainsafia.com
Somebody asked me recently how Aspire auto-spins up the Azure Functions runtime when your AppHost includes a Functions project.

I wrote about how it works and the .NET SDK feature that makes it possible.

🔗 : blog.safia.rocks/2025/12/02/a...

#aspire @aspire.dev
How does Aspire launch the Azure Functions runtime when you call aspire run?
A behind-the-scenes look at how Aspire launches the Azure Functions runtime locally, leveraging a clever .NET SDK feature to make it all work seamlessly.
blog.safia.rocks
December 2, 2025 at 5:35 PM
poppastring.com
Just dropped a new extension for #visualstudio2026 inspired by the beloved Blue theme found in #visualstudio 2022. Enjoy!

marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemNa...
A Kind Of Blue Theme Pack - Visual Studio Marketplace
Extension for Visual Studio - A suite of Visual Studio 2022+ themes inspired by iconic 'blue' moods in jazz. Each theme balances readability with atmosphere, offering developers a palette that reflect...
marketplace.visualstudio.com
December 2, 2025 at 5:24 PM
poppastring.com
Data regulators in Thailand are blocking the Altman-founded company from collecting iris scans. The business model assumes it will be difficult to tell humans apart from online AI avatars. It does sounds like he created a problem then founded a business to solve it.

therecord.media/thailand-wor...
Thailand bans World iris scans, orders company to delete data
Data regulators in Thailand said they are blocking the Sam Altman-founded company Tools for Humanity from collecting iris scans in exchange for cryptocurrency payments.
therecord.media
December 2, 2025 at 2:00 PM
Reposted by Mark Downie
kirillosenkov.com
MSBuild tip: if you're working with binlogs, set the environment variable MSBuildLogPropertyTracking=15.

It enables logging of where each property was initially assigned from during evaluation and lights up more features in the binlog viewer.
screenshot of MSBuild binlog viewer on the Properties and Items tab, the query shows `$property "OutputPath" "UseArtifactsOutput"` results show a tree where each assignment to OutputPath is highlighted, with the actual value being displayed where an assignment was made
December 2, 2025 at 6:13 AM
poppastring.com
We’ve taken debugging to the next level by adding repository context for faster, more precise exception resolution. #copilot cross-references your open repo for past bugs, issues, pull requests to deliver actionable insights tailored to your codebase. #visualstudio

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBY-...
Enhanced exception analysis with Repository context
YouTube video by Microsoft Visual Studio
www.youtube.com
December 1, 2025 at 9:27 PM
poppastring.com
A post from the archive 📫:
Curiosity unbounded


https://www.poppastring.com/blog/curiosity-unbounded
#musings
November 29, 2025 at 7:35 PM
Reposted by Mark Downie
scott.hanselman.com
New blog post - Automatically Signing a Windows EXE with Azure Trusted Signing, dotnet sign, and GitHub Actions www.hanselman.com/blog/automat...
Automatically Signing a Windows EXE with Azure Trusted Signing, dotnet sign, and GitHub Actions
Mac Tahoe (in Beta as of the time of this writing) has this new feature called ...
www.hanselman.com
November 28, 2025 at 11:33 PM
Reposted by Mark Downie
carnage4life.bsky.social
Not wanting to disappoint you so much that it lies is the last quality I want in a computer.
November 28, 2025 at 12:02 AM
poppastring.com
A post from the archive 📫:
The return of WinDbg


https://www.poppastring.com/blog/the-return-of-windbg
#debugging #diagnostics
November 26, 2025 at 7:35 PM
poppastring.com
Look, too many lists exclude sweet potatoe from their top 5 pies, and I have to seriously reconsider who I follow on this app.
November 26, 2025 at 12:30 AM
Reposted by Mark Downie
mugsysrapsheet.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
AFTER FIVE YEARS OF BEGGING...

#microsoft FINALLY listened to me and added a Property in #visualstudio2026 to stop auto-inserting scrollbars in embedded forms (no more double scrollbars!) 👍 #programming
November 25, 2025 at 8:36 PM
Reposted by Mark Downie
tyamananamika.bsky.social
VisualStudio2026のAIに20年前に作ったおバカコードを改修させたらなんとなくかっこ良くなった(^_^;
November 17, 2025 at 3:09 PM
Reposted by Mark Downie
financialtimes.com
OpenAI needs to raise at least $207bn by 2030 so it can continue to lose money, HSBC estimates on.ft.com/4ij0yh8
OpenAI needs to raise at least $207bn by 2030 so it can continue to lose money, HSBC estimates
A burning platform
on.ft.com
November 25, 2025 at 7:42 PM
Reposted by Mark Downie
typhdeveloper.bsky.social
#games #gamedev #VisualStudio #Microsoft
I converted all my projects from vs2022 to vs2026.
Result?...
All good!🤪
November 25, 2025 at 11:07 AM
Reposted by Mark Downie
adamrdriscoll.com
PowerShell Pro Tools (for Visual Studio) works fine with VS2026.
two men are talking to each other and one of them is saying real nice .
ALT: two men are talking to each other and one of them is saying real nice .
media.tenor.com
November 25, 2025 at 4:44 PM
poppastring.com
OK, I will not be tricked into another fruitless late night search. If I want to see the lights I am just gonna book that trip to Alaska.
November 25, 2025 at 5:32 PM
Reposted by Mark Downie
london.gov.uk
Today we celebrated 100 million free school meals provided to children in London’s state primary schools 🎉
The Mayor of London and a large group of students in purple uniforms posing with thumbs up around a table with platters of fruit spelling out "100M"
November 25, 2025 at 4:18 PM
Reposted by Mark Downie
reckless.bsky.social
Pesky Verge ethics policy strikes again in this killer @andyjayhawk.bsky.social piece looking into car YouTube’s obsession with Chinese EVs and the company organizing the access and junkets. Comments from DeMuro, TFL, OmarDrives, and more -> www.theverge.com/transportati...
It makes sense that the company working to get Chinese EVs in front of US creators would also be owned by the same platform on which said content is inevitably published. But it was growing increasingly clear that the company was in no rush to answer my questions. After all, The Verge is probably very different from most of the outlets and creators DCar works with. We don’t accept money from the companies we cover. We either buy or borrow and return all the products we review. We have a strict ethics policy that governs all the coverage we do. After several of my attempts to schedule a call were ignored, I tried to get my questions answered over email. Why are Chinese automakers interested in working with US content creators? What do they get out of it? I’ve been told that some Chinese companies pay for content. Is that accurate? Are the Chinese OEMs satisfied with how their cars are being received in the US? And what relationship does ByteDance have with all this?
November 25, 2025 at 4:16 PM